


paradise (is in your eyes)

by southsalem



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Not Beta Read, Summer Romance, Time Skips, all lower case, this is kinda sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 07:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19458949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/southsalem/pseuds/southsalem
Summary: the first summer is made of the sticky sweet taste of freezer burnt strawberry popsicles and the shrill laughter of children too young to know a greater insult than 'you're not invited to my birthday party.' it’s filled with waking up with the sun and scouring the beach for sea glass, with playing pretend as astronauts or bandits or pirates, with snorting lemonade out of their noses in explosions of laughter, fireworks of mirth that makes them glow in youthful delight.





	paradise (is in your eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> i found this in my drive from last summer and in bits and pieces of scenes that i stitched together to hopefully make a comprehensible narrative. does it make sense? probably not. do i really care? nah.  
> please let me know if you find any typos or anything!! this is unbeta'd and i am Very Tired so im sure a lot slipped through my proofreading 
> 
> hope you enjoy <3

jeno isn't drunk, but there's a heaviness in his limbs that's making his movements slow, making his thoughts thick in his head, sending all rationality slipping away into the silver of the moonlight. he isn't drunk, but the steadiness of sobriety has left him, so his hands are on jaemin’s hips, anchoring him so that he doesn't melt away in the humid air, doesn't slip into the cracks in the concrete. jeno isn't drunk, but he's intoxicated on the scent of jaemin’s skin, on the way that the moonlight gilds the curve of his cheek and wets the gentle wave of his hair. the air is still, so still that it seems like neither of them are breathing, like they’re two statues, two incomplete masterpieces swaying together, painted silver in the moonlight. he can feel the soft fabric of a hoodie jaemin has worn since they were kids under his fingers, feel years of wear. they were just kids, high on life and small rebellion, gorging themselves on sweets and sipping orange juice like it was the finest of wines. the fabric bunches under jeno’s fingers but he can still feel the heat underneath it, the heat that threatens to consume him, the heartbeat that he's set his days by since the first time he locked eyes with one na jaemin. the same heartbeat that led him through deciding they were mortal enemies on the first grade playground. led him through fighting until they were too tired to fight anymore and agreed on a truce. led him to the friendship that defined elementary school, then middle school, then high school, the friendship that ceased to be just a friendship long ago. 

jeno’s eyes are cast down but he can feel jaemin’s hands on his shoulders, still for once, and he feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. stillness never came to jaemin easily, asleep or awake he was always in motion, doing something, changing the world one moment at a time, but now he’s almost still.

maybe jeno is the one he’s changing one moment at a time. or maybe he’s the one thing that jaemin doesn’t want to fix. 

they sway in the darkness, intertwined like they’ve always been, statues cast in silver, two boys with matching heartbeats.

\----

the first summer is made of the sticky sweet taste of freezer burnt strawberry popsicles and the shrill laughter of children too young to know a greater insult than 'you're not invited to my birthday party.' it’s filled with waking up with the sun and scouring the beach for sea glass, with playing pretend as astronauts or bandits or pirates, with snorting lemonade out of their noses in explosions of laughter, fireworks of mirth that makes them glow in youthful delight. 

the first summer is exploration and freezer burnt strawberry popsicles and discovery. it’s making sand castles that fall apart too easily and going home with sunburnt shoulders and freckles across their noses. it’s youth and laughter and innocence.

\----

time feels slippery as they dance, distorted like shadows at dusk. jeno couldn't place how long it has been, an hour or a minute, too far gone on the sweet taste of midnight air on his tongue. 

he doesn’t think he cares.

the smile he tried to hold back breaks like a wave over his cheeks, growing as he lets his eyes flicker up from their feet as they move in sync and sees that jaemin is wearing a small smile as well, though his eyes stay glued to the ground, and suddenly its all jeno can do not to lean forward just a little bit and let their lips brush. the longing in his chest is a tide rolling in from beyond, filling him like the sea in its magnitude as it crashes against his insides and leaves him overwhelmed, overflowing with a certain sharp tenderness that burns like saltwater in his throat.

then jeno lifts his gaze to meet jaemin’s and time has slipped from his control again, and it stretches, holding him in the moment where their eyes are stuck together and the muggy air is caught in his throat in a lump that he can't seem to swallow. the sea inside his wells up again, and the wild frenzy of it is spilling out of his every pore, the longing so great that he can't believe that jaemin can't feel it where his hands burn on jeno’s skin. 

jaemin’s tongue darts out, wetting his lips, making them shine in the shoe polish moonlight, and jeno knows that his gaze is stuck on those lips but he just can't control himself. 

\----

two boys sit on the end of the dock, faces painted golden by the setting sun, popsicles melting over their hands, sweetness on their tongues, breathing in the salty air. jeno swings his legs back and forth and back and forth, his eyes stuck on the horizon, his mind distant. jaemin’s fingers drum against the sea-warped wood. waves break beneath them. sticky sweet popsicle dripping down their fingers.

“hey jeno,” jaemin says suddenly, his fingers stopping their drumming. “if you could be anything, what would you be?”

jeno considers for a moment, his gaze dropping to his lap. he stares at the contrast, his sun browned hand gold against the black of his shorts, and bites his lip as he thinks.

\----

he feels like a live wire, electric in his desire, his eyes frozen on jaemin’s lips, and jeno doesn't know who leaned forward first but they're kissing, and he feels his heart explode, going supernova in his chest. and he's never felt a love so great before and he knows he won't ever again, but it doesn't matter because here in this moment he can feel everything. 

in the darkness he and jaemin are stars, burning so bright they can only see each other. 

he clutches jaemin’s hips tight so that he doesn't melt away into the air, so that they stay anchored to the ground, and he can feel jaemin gripping his shoulders just as hard, his grasp screaming 'i'm real.'

he can almost forget that jaemin’s leaving tomorrow. that the night is the last that they'll be them.

\----

“i think i’d like to be a bird. i’d like to, well... flying seems like so much fun,”

jaemin frowns, considering his answer, his legs beginning to swing in time with jeno’s.

“but if you were a bird you couldn’t play at the beach or go to school,” 

fondness pulls the corners of jeno’s mouth into a small smile. he looks over at jaemin, whose inkwell eyes are fixed on his. the waves seem distant and the breeze quiet, and now it’s only them, sitting on the end of the dock, moving in time.

\----

they have to break apart eventually, once again become two beings in the moonlight rather than one, but even if jeno misses the feeling of jaemin’s lips on his, he can see the smile in his eyes, and that is almost as good. 

they spend the rest of the night together, kissing softly and ignoring the tears that occasionally slip down jeno’s cheeks. then in the grey before the morning jaemin is gone, and jeno can feel every part of his cry out in mourning. when he wakes the silver of the moon is long gone along with the heat of jaemin’s body against his, and when jeno closes his eyes he can still almost feel him, almost see the curve of his cheek and the curl of his hair but it isn’t enough. 

when he finally drags his eyes open, melancholy is pooling in the hollows of his body, in the corners of his eyes and the space between his clavicles and his every movement makes him feels as if parts of him are collapsing in on themselves. the curtains are drawn and only a sliver of light pierces through the shroud of his doldrums, and when he finally pulls herself from bed it feels as if he is pulling himself from death.

he throws open the curtains and lets the tears slide down his cheeks.

\----

“i don’t think i’d care, really,” he starts, and jaemin breaks out into a small grin as well. “being a bird and all that,”

jaemin nods, turning back to look at the water, his skin radiant in the golden light. he takes a bite from his popsicle, and jeno shudders, taking a lick of his own.

“how can you bite it?” he asks. “it hurts my teeth,”

jaemin’s grin turns mischievous and he turns to jeno, taking another bite. 

“‘s just good,” he says, mouth full of strawberry ice, juice dripping down his chin. the dock is going to be sticky tomorrow, jeno can tell. he rolls his eyes, and turns his face away from his friend and into the sun, eyes closed, basking in the warmth.

\----

jaemin never truly leaves. he exists in the eyes of a stranger that jeno passes on his way to university, in the curve of a smile that fits so strangely on jeno’s new friends, in the drumming of the rain and the song of the birds. though people come and go, taking tiny pieces of jeno’s heart with them, there's always a chasm carved out where jaemin used to fit. 

\----

“fine, what would you be if you could be anything?” jeno says, and his voice is lower, softer than before. 

“i’d,” jaemin starts, “i’d like to be a bird as well. we could fly around together, it’d be fun,”

jeno nods, grin growing to a hundred watts as he absorbs jaemin's words. he looks over at the boy sitting next to him, the boy he knows almost as well as himself in the simple magic of childhood, and he grabs jaemin’s hand where it lays on the dock and laces their fingers together.

\----

after more time than he can quantify, when he has a bottle, a sea that seems so like the one that he used to hold in his chest, and a wish that swells larger and larger with each moment that passes, it only seems natural to use the last bit of hope he holds and pour them all out into the bottle that spins and drifts out to sea.

\----

“i think we'd be best friends even if we were birds,” jeno says, and the words are strings pulling the corners of his mouth into a smile whose curve is a watermelon rind, summer sweet and saturated with sunshine.

jaemin glows.

"we'd be best friends no matter what! even if you were a cat and i was a dog we'd be best friends!"

jeno looks over at him, raising his eyebrows but unable to contain how he’s beaming.

“best friends,” he giggles. “no matter what.”

\----

the bottle spins and bobs out on the current, caught in swirling eddies and waves cresting so gently there isn’t a hint of white foam, and floats away from where the sun makes the water into a stained glass window of blues and greens into the darker water, where the bottom drops away and treasure hides in the sand. it floats out until it is only a glint of sunlight to those standing on the shore, until it melds with the light glancing off the water and vanishes, as if the bottle with only a tiny curl of white paper inside it was only a dream from a storybook kingdom where the town is always peaceful and glass bottles can actually make the wish inside them come true. 

\----

the sun sets, gilded gold replaced with the silver of the moon, and the two kids make their way back to the summer house they share. the darkness is silent and when they bid each other goodnight it is with the finality of knowing that tomorrow they return to normal life, tomorrow they leave the cottage and the sleepy town, that tomorrow is the last day of summer. the air seems to be holding its breath when they pack up sleepily in the morning, sand in their ears and summer in their souls, and leave the cottage to descend into silence, into hibernation until next time. 

past, present, and future collide on the steps of the cottage, and with a final shudder, the land and sea let out a breath.

\----

jeno doesn't move until long after the bottle gone, instead watching the ebb and flow of the sea silently and waiting for soundless tears to stop slipping down his cheeks, carving pathways well worn and making his face shine in the early light. he waits as clouds start to roll in, sluggishly making their way across the sky like a herd of sheep, heavy with wool. he waits as the first raindrops start to fall, making their music as they drum on the earth and sea. he waits until the first great peal of thunder splits the sky before turning away from the storm and walking back to his cottage, where he can find little rest because every floorboard of it is saturated with memories, of nights spent sick with laughter, of two children gorging themselves on sweets like they're a banquet fit for kings, of spilling orange juice on the carpet below the breakfast table, of curling up together at a window when the air is heavy and still and waiting for the storm to break and the lightning and thunder to create a wild chorus with the crashing of the waves and the drumbeat of the rain and the howling of the wind. every room in the cottage is filled with ghosts of two kids caught in a cabin for the summer with only the sleepy small town to explore and each other for company. ever room is filled with the ghosts of adventures over the highest mountain and into the deepest depths, the ghosts of cleaning each other's scrapes and cuts because they didn't want to adults to know, of lopsided bandaids that always took away the pain because of the love that they were applied with. so as jeno steps through the door, dripping wet and a bottle and a wish lighter, he closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of the house that holds his childhood. he stays there in the doorway for a second, leaning heavily on the wall, limbs heavy with melancholy, painted in blues and greys that swirl over his skin like the storm high above. 

but he stands back up, despite the heaviness in his limbs, and makes his way through the house like only someone who knows every creak of the floorboards and scratch on the wall can. he sheds the wet clothes that hang heavy on his slim frame, redressing in only his softest clothes whose fabric is gentle from wear, and grabs one of the heavy blankets that is spilled over the plush couch that dominates the living room, pulling it around his shoulders. he slips into the window seat, drowning himself in the blanket, and watches the storm, ignoring the pained beat of his heart wishing for the person who always sat beside him. the house is warm and unbothered by the rain lashing the windows and the wind beating itself against the walls, but with every breath he can feel the raging of the storm finding a home within him, nestling itself in the cracks where someone else used to live.

he clutches the blanket tighter and watches the madness outside, one only matched by the swirling sea of longing inside him. he can still hear his laughter, still see the curve jaemin’s cheek, still feel their hands laced together. 

\----

somewhere far from the place that they once filled, two boys with matching heartbeats dance in the moonlight, but they don't let go.


End file.
